Spacetech (2023)

1. Spectator, customer or leader?

   These are the three options available to Europe as it figures out how to catch up in the space race. The European Space Agency (ESA) says the lack of an independent human launch capacity “threaten[s] Europe’s future as a credible actor in space”.

   Industry heads feel that the solution is for the ESA to become more like NASA i.e. a more active customer of first resort, that rewards capital-intensive startups with much-needed cash through multi-year launch contracts.

2. Scramble for the moon

   Missions to the moon are back in a big way, with several countries planning to send rovers to explore it. India became only the fourth country to land a lunar probe last month (the mission reportedly only cost $74m — less than the budget for Hollywood space thriller “Gravity”).

   Companies think there's money to be made from mining the moon; others hope to turn it into a glorified filling station, where spaceships can pull in and refuel on the way to Mars and other parts of the universe.

   More than 100 lunar missions have been announced by 2030; and by ESA’s estimates, Europe is leading only two of them. US companies Intuitive Machines and Astrobotic hope to pull off the first private lunar landings this year after Japan’s ispace failed in April.

3. Blastoff for microgravity-as-a-service?

   It sounds a little crazy, but European companies want to use space’s microgravity to develop new drugs, organs and materials. Gravity and oxygen affect not just the behaviour of solids, liquids and gases but also living tissues. Removing these factors, then, allows scientists to exert greater control over many physical, chemical and biological processes.

   Germany’s Yuri wants to help pharmaceutical scientists carry out experiments in low orbit at a drastically reduced cost. It wouldn’t be the first time pharma companies carried out their research in space — Merck, Amgen, Novartis and Eli Lilly have all done it — but the Yuri way, if it succeeds, would be the cheapest.

   There are obstacles with doing any of this at scale. It’s also time consuming: right now it takes around two years to run an experiment on the International Space Station. Culturing, preserving and returning organs to Earth is another not-so-small challenge.

4. Without rules, some projects will stay Earthbound

   It truly is the Wild West up there: an uncertain legal landscape — which has not evolved as quickly as the industry — means a lot of projects won’t progress in the near term.

   The list of unresolved issues includes: who’s on the hook to pay when your satellite bumps into someone else’s space asset? Insurers including Swiss Re and Axa are looking into the possibilities.

   Lawmakers will also have to weigh in on whether European companies can carry tourists to space. The lack of regulation governing resource extraction from other planets, meanwhile, will also keep the brakes on some commercial players.

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